Wednesday, 25 May 2016

A new job

is three weeks away for my eldest nephew. He phoned last night to let the Senior Cat know he is, once again, moving on. He came back from the UK some years ago - to marry the girl he loved. The experience there was good for him. He came back to no job but landed one within days. Since then he has not been out of work. He has been "head hunted" three times. He turned another one down because it didn't feel right for him.This new one means he is now in charge of more than three times as many people as before. He has to get all of them to perform. He has to perform himself.He is happy an excited about the challenge. Can he handle it? He is sure he can but he also knows he has a lot to learn. It is good that he is prepared to acknowledge that.I would loathe to even try and do what he is doing. It's in the digital technology field. I know nothing about it beyond that it involves selling as well. I am not a happy cat when I have to sell anything other than ideas. I don't mind selling ideas.It made me realise though how much the workplace has changed since I began work...and how much more it has changed since the Senior Cat started work. Even when the Senior Cat retired things were very different. There were still blackboards in classrooms when the Senior Cat retired. Is there a blackboard anywhere in a school now? I suppose there might be. Do they get used? I doubt it.I remember the Senior Cat writing on the blackboard. He was slow. His writing has always been abominable. He admits it. I used to get the children to write on the board when I taught the only "ordinary" class I ever had. (The students were anything but ordinary. ) One of the girls came in every morning. Her exquisite calligraphy filled the board. Other teachers would like to have borrowed her. You don't need that now. I could type it all and fling it up on a screen via computer. There would be no need for a "blackboard monitor" to go out and bang the chalk dusters. There would be no children begging me for a "little piece of chalk so we can do hopscotch". We were paid via a fortnightly cheque we had to put in the bank. The Senior Cat started out with actual money in an envelope. Now pay goes straight into a bank account via computer.And that brought the Senior Cat to a question for my nephew. "What do you do about your superannuation?"The Senior Cat worries about things like superannuation and insurance. It worries him that I was never allowed to enter the superannuation scheme...a discrimination which would now be against the law but was too late in coming to rectify for me. "Oh that rolls over with me," said my nephew. I could hear the Senior Cat sigh with relief. He really doesn't understand not staying with one employer for life as he did.It is all strange and different. Work has changed. The Senior Cat loved teaching. He still loves it if he does it on a one-to-one basis. I liked it but I didn't feel passionate about it. I feel quite differently about the job I carved out for myself.I suppose that is what my nephew is doing and that he finds it satisfying. I wonder how long it will be before he moves on to the next challenge.All I can hope for him is that there is always a job there.